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We did this last year. Nothing has really changed, so I’ll quote in relevant portion below.
One of college football's favorite pastimes is reaching knee-jerk conclusions once bowl season is over. One additional data point after a season of 12 (or 13) games, in games that are glorified exhibitions featuring teams with varying levels of interest and motivation, some of whom have coaching staffs in flux, are REALLY IMPORTANT Y'ALL.
Sorry. Rant over.
Most attempts at assessing overall conference bowl performance are little more than a comparison of overall conference record, with an ad-hoc look at specific matchups that support the chosen narrative. Conferences with better overall records are anointed as superior.
Of course, this assumes uniformity in bowl matchups, which doesn't exist. This mindset stems from the days when there were only a handful of bowls pitting one of the top two teams from each major conference. Hello, early 1990s Orange Bowls. And mindless football fan/media groupthink.
Today's bowls often feature teams with sharply different season performances. ... On closer inspection, specifically using F/+ rankings which attempt to evaluate play-by-play performance and ignore uncontrollable variables such as the vagaries of bounces and other luck associated with a violent game played at high speeds by young men throwing and carrying an oddly shaped ball, we often find great disparity in the matchups when better metrics are employed.
The charts below show each conference's bowl matchups with F/+ rankings, results, and a column assessing the result. A win where a win was expected by F/+ is a zero; a positive one means the conference's team won a matchup where it was the underdog, and a negative one means the opposite.
Untitled
| Conference | Win/Loss | School | F/+ Rank | Opponent | Opp. F/+ Rank | Conference +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conference | Win/Loss | School | F/+ Rank | Opponent | Opp. F/+ Rank | Conference +/- |
| Big 12 | W | Baylor | 73 | Boise State | 15 | 1 |
| Big 12 | L | West Virginia | 52 | Miami | 13 | 0 |
| Big 12 | W | K-State | 38 | Texas A&M | 19 | 1 |
| Big 12 | W | Oklahoma State | 29 | Colorado | 17 | 1 |
| Big 12 | L | TCU | 44 | Georgia | 66 | -1 |
| Big 12 | W | Oklahoma | 10 | Auburn | 11 | 0 |
| SEC | W | Mississippi State | 55 | Miami (OH) | 78 | 0 |
| SEC | L | Vanderbilt | 75 | NC State | 28 | 0 |
| SEC | L | Texas A&M | 19 | K-State | 38 | -1 |
| SEC | L | South Carolina | 93 | South Florida | 39 | 0 |
| SEC | L | Arkansas | 53 | Virginia Tech | 24 | 0 |
| SEC | W | Georgia | 66 | TCU | 44 | 1 |
| SEC | W | Tennessee | 43 | Nebraska | 34 | 1 |
| SEC | W | LSU | 5 | Louisville | 7 | 0 |
| SEC | L | Kentucky | 59 | Georgia Tech | 50 | 0 |
| SEC | W | Alabama | 1 | Washington | 6 | 0 |
| SEC | W | Florida | 42 | Iowa | 20 | 1 |
| SEC | L | Auburn | 11 | Oklahoma | 10 | 0 |
| ACC | W | Boston College | 88 | Maryland | 87 | 1 |
| ACC | W | NC State | 28 | Vanderbilt | 75 | 0 |
| ACC | W | Wake Forest | 72 | Temple | 18 | 1 |
| ACC | L | Pitt | 26 | Northwestern | 49 | -1 |
| ACC | W | Miami | 13 | West Virginia | 52 | 0 |
| ACC | W | Virginia Tech | 24 | Arkansas | 53 | 0 |
| ACC | L | North Carolina | 22 | Stanford | 21 | 0 |
| ACC | W | Florida State | 9 | Michigan | 2 | 1 |
| ACC | L | Louisville | 7 | LSU | 5 | 0 |
| ACC | W | Georgia Tech | 50 | Kentucky | 59 | 0 |
| ACC | W | Clemson | 4 | Ohio State | 3 | 1 |
| Big 10 | L | Maryland | 87 | Boston College | 88 | -1 |
| Big 10 | W | Minnesota | 37 | Washington State | 33 | 1 |
| Big 10 | W | Northwestern | 49 | Pitt | 26 | 1 |
| Big 10 | L | Indiana | 48 | Utah | 40 | 0 |
| Big 10 | L | Nebraska | 34 | Tennessee | 43 | -1 |
| Big 10 | L | Michigan | 2 | Florida State | 9 | -1 |
| Big 10 | L | Ohio State | 3 | Clemson | 4 | 1 |
| Big 10 | W | Wisconsin | 16 | W. Michigan | 36 | 0 |
| Big 10 | L | Iowa | 20 | Florida | 42 | -1 |
| Big 10 | L | Penn State | 12 | USC | 8 | 0 |
| Pac-12 | L | Washington State | 33 | Minnesota | 37 | -1 |
| Pac-12 | W | Utah | 40 | Indiana | 48 | 0 |
| Pac-12 | L | Colorado | 17 | Oklahoma State | 29 | -1 |
| Pac-12 | W | Stanford | 21 | North Carolina | 22 | 0 |
| Pac-12 | L | Washington | 6 | Alabama | 1 | 0 |
| Pac-12 | W | USC | 8 | Penn State | 12 | 0 |
Totals
ACC +3
Big 12 +2
SEC +2
Big 10 -1
Pac-12 -2
The ACC leads the way at +3, with the Big 12 and SEC both at +2. Both the Big 10 and the Pac-12 lost more games than expected. This is the second year the Pac-12 has turned in a -2 bowl performance.
As with last year, there’s no great discovery here. Based on two years worth of data, you might say that the Big 12, SEC and ACC are proving that they hold their own in cross-conference matchups. The Big 10 has had one negative year and one positive year. Maybe the Pac-12 is a bit overrated.
But again, these are small sample sets. Then again, the entire college football season is a small sample set. Doesn’t prevent the talking heads from drawing definitive conclusions from it.